This is a life history case study of urban community responses to school turnaround policies, 2011-2016. The study analyzes Black voices and historically marginalized perspectives affected by an integrated governance school leadership model in Waterbury, Connecticut. This inquiry is driven by the uproar that ensued with a particular kind of mayoral control, and the removal of a beloved Black principal, Erik Brown. Charges of racism followed as members of minoritized communities in Waterbury argued that the mostly White educational administration and leadership in the district made decisions contrary to the best interests of the over 85 percent Black and Brown student body.I analyze policy discourses through document analysis and interviews with school leaders and prominent Black voices in Waterbury. Aligned with Stein’s (2004) “culture of education policy” critical perspective, I discuss ways Culturally Responsive Leadership (Khalifa, Gooden, and Davis, 2016) contribute to decolonizing the culture of deficit thinking in educational policy discourses and practices in schools. Key concepts are “strategic essentialism” and “Decolonizing the Culture of Education / Policy and Leadership” (DC/PL). This life history study is grounded in Isabelle Wilkerson’s (2010) Great Migration framework, as southern migration helped shaped the city’s Black and minoritized communities. I analyze participants’ life stories through decolonizing lenses and culturally responsive school leadership tools to foreground how members of Black and historically minoritized communities cope with imposing school leadership discourses and practices. Waterbury’s minoritized community members’ perspectives are empowered in this study in order to analyze mayoral control and turnaround policy implementation. This study found that the voices of minoritized community members were not included, and at best marginalized. African American and other minoritized community members’ insight and perspectives—voices of educators and elected officials—were silenced under culture of education policy discourses operating in Waterbury.
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